So, for instance browsing your library using PyTivoX is not good for you (just wondering cos this is the exact option I would LOVE for StreamBaby.

It will not pass the "Spouse Test" without this option (in my opinion).

I'm a little confused, but I think this is what the option
use.title=(true/false, with default=true) does.

In the selection screen if use.title=true it displays using titles parsed from metadata, otherwise it uses the filename. (This isn't quite true, as unless you set use.title.cachedonly it only uses the meta-title if it is cached).

If use.title=false, then the old style of using filenames is used. If it set to true, it tries to use the titles parsed from the metadata.

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So, for instance browsing your library using PyTivoX is not good for you (just wondering cos this is the exact option I would LOVE for StreamBaby.

It will not pass the "Spouse Test" without this option (in my opinion).

Haven't used pytivo in a while, ever since HME video streaming capability became possible and back when I did I didn't have metadata files anyway so I always saw file names.
I can certainly understand the desire for that feature for some which is why I suggest it should be an option instead of one way or another as it looks like Keary already has made it. (With last SVN build I tried enabling use.title was causing streambaby to hang for me in Windows so I had to set it to false so I never got to see what it was supposed to do).

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Then consider this my request to Yoav to remove the use.title=false from the current PyTivoX beta build .ini file since kearygriffin seems to think that option is no longer required.... (see post #381 in thread #416858 for kearygriffin's response)

J

Last edited by jannlinder; 02-10-2009 at 01:04 AM..
Reason: adding thread and post id for information

Then consider this my request to Yoav to remove the use.title=false from the current PyTivoX beta build .ini file since kearygriffin seems to think that option is no longer required.... (see post #381 in thread #416858 for kearygriffin's response)

J

Ermm.. it's already been removed in the last beta. You may want to use the 'check for updates' menu option, and hit 'Apply' after installing it.

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Then consider this my request to Yoav to remove the use.title=false from the current PyTivoX beta build .ini file since kearygriffin seems to think that option is no longer required.... (see post #381 in thread #416858 for kearygriffin's response)

J

Not 100% sure but I believe in latest SVN the metadata caching is off by default. However if you hit "enter" while in file browsing mode it will build the cache as Keary mentioned. Or as Keary mentioned you can set the following in INI:
use.title.cachedonly=false
For me the metadata parsing is still hanging on Windows and I believe others have had the issue as well which is why I think Keary has disabled it by default until that gets worked out. (I haven't really been able to test out these settings to know exactly what they do because of the hangs).

The main features in this version are metadata parsing and CCing (thanks to moyekj).
CCing is turned on/off via the ASPECT button on the remote, and defaults to ON if a SRT file is found. There are also some config settings, which I'll document tomorrow on the wiki.

I fixed a few issues that I think were causing problems with the metadata on windows, so hopefully most people will be able to get the metadata information now. If not please let me know.

The selection screen will use titles parsed from the metadata as opposed to filenames by default, but it will not use them until they have been cached. They are cached when you select a movie to be played, or you can cache all of the entries for a directory by pressing the ENTER key in the selection screen. (This key will probably change in the future...) There are also some config settings to automatically force the caching of metadata when a directory is entered.

All of the metadata is parsed using XSL, so if anyone wants to take a stab at better XSLT stylesheets, please feel free. I'll try to post up some basic instructions tomorrow, but basically the stylesheets are located in the stylesheets directory. In some cases multiple stylesheets are provided, with one generating HTML and one generating text. HTML supports images, but text stylesheets text looks nicer (HTML stylesheets render text on the PC side, while text stylesheets render the text on the Tivo).
meta-html.xsl & meta-text.xsl: XSLT for MP4 metadata. html version is default. change with ini setting xsl.meta=xxx.xsl
pytivo-html.xsl & pytivo-text.xsl: pytivo-text.xsl is the default. change with xsl.pytivo=xxx.xsl

Tivo XML files are also supported by way of tivo-pyxml.xsl which transforms them into a format that the pytivo-xxx.xsl scripts can transform.

(GIF/JPG/PNG are also supported, and rendered as-is)
Plain text .txt files that are not pytivo files are also supported (autodetected) and rendered as-is.

I know the above is confusing, and I'll try to post a better description on streambaby wiki tomorrow.

Ermm.. it's already been removed in the last beta. You may want to use the 'check for updates' menu option, and hit 'Apply' after installing it.

Arghhh...

Okay, so i just noticed something...

CAVEAT: We were warned that the current code only gets title and desc from the meta file so this is not a bug...it is a feature request

With the current meta code (which works as of b15 of pytivox) streambaby grabs the title meta tag. This is bad for tv shows as it does not acknowledge the isEpisode : true meta tag (which should then grab the episodeTitle and display the episode title instead -- or at least concatenate the episodeTitle onto the title -- which is in all actuality the series name (maybe with a dash or colon in between)).

I wish I knew Java. I am a perl programmer and really wish I had the time to pick up Java!

ps: In case I had not said it before: Thanks to all pytivo, pytivoX and StreamBaby programmers! Your work allowed me to ditch my appletv and use my Tivo for my personal library!

J

Last edited by jannlinder; 02-10-2009 at 02:15 AM..
Reason: a thank you added

Arghhh...
With the current meta code (which works as of b15 of pytivox) streambaby grabs the title meta tag. This is bad for tv shows as it does not acknowledge the isEpisode : true meta tag (which should then grab the episodeTitle and display the episode title instead -- or at least concatenate the episodeTitle onto the title -- which is in all actuality the series name (maybe with a dash or colon in between)).

I assume you are talking about pyTivo metadata files. I'll have to look at some more pyTivo metadata files. The ones I have (which I think were all actually generated with kmttg) seem to look like this for episodes:

I assume you are talking about pyTivo metadata files. I'll have to look at some more pyTivo metadata files. The ones I have (which I think were all actually generated with kmttg) seem to look like this for episodes:

Name of series (The Simpsons, Seinfeld, etc.). This should be included if the show is episodic. For movies, you may repeat the name of the movie (The Mummy, Spiderman, etc), leave blank, or omit.

title

Title of the series (The Simpsons, Seinfeld, etc.) or title of the movie (The Mummy, Spiderman, etc). Seemingly endless number of characters can be entered, only so many will be shown on the Program screen, but all are shown on the Details screen.

episodeTitle

Title of the episode (Pilot, Homer's Night Out, Episode 02, etc.) Should be included for episodic shows. Leave blank or omit for movies.

So when I see these three similar meta headings I am assuming the only place the episodeTitle goes is episodeTitle

(by the way...do not take any of this personally...I am simply trying to put forward that to be true to the spec for pytivo meta files we need to stick to the wiki and not to what another programmer has done in the past. That is the only way that we can maintain true compatibility)

Name of series (The Simpsons, Seinfeld, etc.). This should be included if the show is episodic. For movies, you may repeat the name of the movie (The Mummy, Spiderman, etc), leave blank, or omit.

title

Title of the series (The Simpsons, Seinfeld, etc.) or title of the movie (The Mummy, Spiderman, etc). Seemingly endless number of characters can be entered, only so many will be shown on the Program screen, but all are shown on the Details screen.

episodeTitle

Title of the episode (Pilot, Homer's Night Out, Episode 02, etc.) Should be included for episodic shows. Leave blank or omit for movies.

So when I see these three similar meta headings I am assuming the only place the episodeTitle goes is episodeTitle

(by the way...do not take any of this personally...I am simply trying to put forward that to be true to the spec for pytivo meta files we need to stick to the wiki and not to what another programmer has done in the past. That is the only way that we can maintain true compatibility)

J

Well, with (an admittedly old version of) pyTivo things don't work out for me with metadata file unless I have the following configuration example (which is why I made kmttg do what it does):
title : The O'Reilly Factor - Coverage of the DNC
seriesTitle : The O'Reilly Factor
episodeTitle : Coverage of the DNC
With above settings pyTivo gives me following in short description:
The O'Reilly Factor <--- This in big letters
"The O'Reilly Factor - Coverage of the DNC" ....

If however I make the metadata file with the more logical settings:
title : The O'Reilly Factor
seriesTitle : The O'Reilly Factor
episodeTitle : Coverage of the DNC
Then I get:
The O'Reilly Factor <--- This in big letters
"The O'Reilly Factor" .... <--- missing episode description

Various other combinations I tried either don't give the right name in NPL or don't look right under description and extended description.

i.e. Only the first case most closely emulates what I see on Tivo which is why I make the metadata file like that in kmttg. Could be more recent versions of pyTivo behave differently, but at the time I added metadata support to kmttg that was the behavior (and still is with the old version of pyTivo I have installed).

Well, with (an admittedly old version) of pyTivo things don't work out for me with metadata file unless I have the following configuration example (which is why I made kmttg do what it does):
title : The O'Reilly Factor - Coverage of the DNC
seriesTitle : The O'Reilly Factor
episodeTitle : Coverage of the DNC
With above settings pyTivo gives me:
The O'Reilly Factor <--- This in big letters
"The O'Reilly Factor - Coverage of the DNC" ....

If however I make the metadata file with the more logical settings:
title : The O'Reilly Factor
seriesTitle : The O'Reilly Factor
episodeTitle : Coverage of the DNC
Then I get:
The O'Reilly Factor <--- This in big letters
"The O'Reilly Factor" .... <--- missing episode description

Various other combinations I tried either don't give the right name in NPL or don't look right under description and extended description.

i.e. Only the first case most closely emulates what I see on Tivo which is why I make the metadata file like that in kmttg. Could be more recent versions of pyTivo behave differently, but at the time I put that into kmttg that was the behavior.

WIKI WAY:
Reba <-- big Letters
"War and Peace" (2003) Reba is happy to find out that she and Kyra are closer than ever since Krya moved in with Brock and Barbra Jean. Kyra's behavior is driving Brock and Barbra Jean crazy. Meanwhile, Cheyenne's snoring is causing problems for Van. <-- small letters

KMTTG WAY:
Reba <-- big Letters
"Reba" (2003) Reba is happy to find out that she and Kyra are closer than ever since Krya moved in with Brock and Barbra Jean. Kyra's behavior is driving Brock and Barbra Jean crazy. Meanwhile, Cheyenne's snoring is causing problems for Van. <-- small letters

Oh well...

Maybe an option in the ini file as follows:

use.kmttg.meta.parsing=true/false

if true, then it parses the title as it currently does -- and is compatible with the older PyTivo
if false, then it follows the PyTivo Wiki description for the fields (and the new PyTivo and PyTivoX) and is standard as far as the wiki is concerned.

PyTivoX would have to, of course, set this to false to be compatible with the way it currently displays information so as to make it's own non-streaming descriptions the same as the StreamBaby descriptions...

My goal is to make both PyTivoX and StreamBaby (since it is now included) display meta info the same way. It is odd, after all, to view the same show 2 different ways and get 2 different displays of data.

With the current meta code (which works as of b15 of pytivox) streambaby grabs the title meta tag. This is bad for tv shows as it does not acknowledge the isEpisode : true meta tag

Unfortunately I have seen isEpisode set to true for movies as well. Tivo metadata is such entirely black magic it's a pain in the butt to deal with. May I suggest divorcing the wife instead? I suspect that would pass the spouse test more easily...

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Sounds like newer branches of pyTivo have fixed the issue and behave the expected way. I'm not sure which particular branch of pyTivo is used by pyTivoX or if it really matters? For my installation I see I have this version that was installed using Windows installer: "pyTivo 2008.05.02". That version behaves the way I describe. I'll have to try a more recent version to confirm the fix.

EDIT: I just updated to following version: wgw-2008.10.15-RC1
I can confirm it now behaves as expected so no need to include episodeTitle content in title.

I'm not sure which particular branch of pyTivo is used by pyTivoX or if it really matters?

Not sure if it really matters (I'm not using metadata so I'm not really contributing much here) but pyTivoX is using the latest git version of pyTivo-wgw (generally re-pulled with every build).

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Unfortunately I have seen isEpisode set to true for movies as well. Tivo metadata is such entirely black magic it's a pain in the butt to deal with.

Yes, but as programmers aren't we *supposed* to code for the standard and then put options (if we wish) to handle the misbehaving applications?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yoav

May I suggest divorcing the wife instead? I suspect that would pass the spouse test more easily...

husband...and yes, he would *love* a divorce as then he could have a simpler life and not worry about how I want to set up the electronics and computer controlled lights and garage door opener sensors (grin).

All I am really saying is that if we code for misbehaving or misunderstood applications in order to make them work we are gonna have other programmers say 'Well, since StreamBaby does it that way, we should too". PyTivo handles this condition correctly. Why shouldn't StreamBaby?

EDIT: I just updated to following version: wgw-2008.10.15-RC1
I can confirm it now behaves as expected so no need to include episodeTitle content in title.

Please define "as expected". If the wiki needs to be changed, lets change it ...

I wrote my own app that pulls data from thetvdb.com and builds my own .txt metadata files for PyTivo. I would LOVE to know what the "official" explanation of title is. If it is supposed to be "display title" then it needs to morph depending on whether or not it is a tv show or movie, etc. I can fix my app to work correctly, however, as it stands my displays in b14 and b15 (as well as the current release version of pyTivoX), are all displaying correct information insofar as the Wiki is concerned -- so this means to me that pyTivoX is using a version of pyTivo that follows the Wiki for the definition of title (meaning use episodeName in both the selection screen and place episodeName in quotes below seriesTitle on the description page of the Tivo.)

Last edited by jannlinder; 02-10-2009 at 12:37 PM..
Reason: describing how the current pyTivo operates

All I am really saying is that if we code for misbehaving or misunderstood applications in order to make them work we are gonna have other programmers say 'Well, since StreamBaby does it that way, we should too". PyTivo handles this condition correctly. Why shouldn't StreamBaby?

I'm all for making things work. don't get me wrong. But the reason pyTivo handles it 'correctly' is because pyTivo just passes all the data back to the tivo, and the tivo does what it always does with the data (all those variable names were not made up by pyTivo.. They are the original variables that tivo stores as its metadata with every show it records). Streambaby is actually trying to parse the data and handle all the interesting / undocumented situations... and I'm just warning that it's not as simple as it sounds... -- Tivo hasn't actually published a document detailing the metadata and what it means (afaik). We've just been playing a guessing game that we mostly have right.

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Please define "as expected". If the wiki needs to be changed, lets change it ...

My definition of expected is that when viewing program details & extended details on the Tivo it should mimic as closely as possible how non-transferred programs look on Tivo. I think the recent pyTivo implementations and the wiki are now in sync so I don't see a reason to update it other than perhaps clarify what each field actually does. As Yoav stated though there is no official Tivo document on any of this metadata stuff so current implementations are a best guess at what the different fields do and future Tivo software updates can easily change the behavior without warning.

Any ideas? At first I thought it was because there was no corresponding metadata file for this video in the .meta directory, but I have tested that on other videos on my NAS and they all work as expected.

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There's no way to get this program to support closed captions is there? It has become my primary mode of adding .srt subtitles to movies using T2sami (very easy and quick ie...no re-encoding).

P.S. In case you missed it Keary released closed captioned capability in 0.22beta. So if you have file.xxx and an accompanying T2Sami file.srt file then by default captions will be enabled and displayed. You can toggle captions on/off using "Aspect" button. It works surprisingly well if the T2Sami file is generated properly.

Is there anything after that in the log? That's definitely an error, and streambaby won't be able to parse the metadata from the that file, but I am not sure why it would crash (from looking at the code it should handle it OK, but of course I don't have an easy way to test). What exactly are the symptoms of the crash? (hanging, exiting program, etc...)

I haven't updated SVN yet, but I added the following logic for pyTivo metadata files, as far as displaying them in the selection screen. For the actual display of what I call the "info" on the playscreen and while playing it is determined by the XSL template, which I am hoping someone who knows XSLT better than me can make work. (Either that or I'll need to implement an alternative to XSLT which I can work in easier)

IF isEpisodic and we have a seriesTitle and we have an episodeTitle
-- Use "seriesTitle - episodeTitle"
else if we have a title:
-- use title:
else if we have a seriesTitle:
-- use seriesTitle:
else if we have episodeTitle
-- use episodeTitle

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Finally got around to trying this app out, so I loaded version .22 and am seeing an error when I select a video on the Tivo. I get 0x50006 error ("the application closed during a read"). I have Windows XP with SP3. I made sure I had Java 1.6 installed. Will play around with it some more to see if I can get it running.

P.S. In case you missed it Keary released closed captioned capability in 0.22beta. So if you have file.xxx and an accompanying T2Sami file.srt file then by default captions will be enabled and displayed. You can toggle captions on/off using "Aspect" button. It works surprisingly well if the T2Sami file is generated properly.

Finally got around to trying this app out, so I loaded version .22 and am seeing an error when I select a video on the Tivo. I get 0x50006 error ("the application closed during a read"). I have Windows XP with SP3. I made sure I had Java 1.6 installed. Will play around with it some more to see if I can get it running.

If you don't have any luck getting 0.22beta perhaps try 0.20beta for now to see if that gets you any further.